I guess hogs can fly. Right down to the point, A-10 Cuba! Is a fairly hard-core flight sim (with the odd exception that the ‘hog will survive an inadvertent touch and go landing with little damage, as when one slightly misjudges the height of a hill!) which eschews texture mapping and smooth shading for a high frame rate. Thing is the way Basalisk II works you need not only and old copy of Mac OS.0- 8.1 but you also need a Mac OS ROM file from an old 680x0 computer. Luckally I had one, ( with a dead CD-rom drive and in dire need of an OS reinstall but it still starts up) Unfortunately I couldn't get A-10 Attack 1.5 to work.
These sims will make your speakers go BBRRRRTT
by ROBERT BECKHUSEN
For almost as long as combat flight simulators have existed, the A-10 Warthog has been there. The low-flying beast is America’s main dedicated ground-attack jet — heavily armored and packing an arsenal of missiles, bombs and a 30-millimeter rotary cannon that spews exploding shells.
The A-10 works for games because it’s simple, and has one mission that the aircraft does better than any other: attack tanks and troops on the ground. From an engineering standpoint, it’s smart. Designs that know what they are — and what they’re trying to accomplish — make for successful designs.
It’s true for software … and close air support aircraft.
No wonder there’s a history of Warthogs in computer and video games. That’s not to say all of the A-10 games out there are good. But some are downright classics. Here is a non-exhaustive account with some of the best, and some not-so-good ones added for balance.
A-10 Tank Killer
As far as I’m able to tell, A-10 Tank Killer was the first dedicated computer game about the Warthog, perhaps the first one to even feature it, and it’s the only A-10 game to come out during the Cold War. As a result, this low-tech sim puts the player commanding the aircraft in its intended role — destroying Soviet tanks in Central Europe.
Developed by flight sim pioneer Dynamix (which was also responsible for the classic Red Baron) and released in 1989 for DOS and Amiga, A-10 Tank Killer is technically simple. It mostly relies on 3D polygons for its low-res graphics, which were typical for flight sims of the era. Aimed more for the casual gamer, flight sim geeks will likely see it as a novelty due to its simple mechanics.
A-10 Tank Killer received expansions for the Europe setting and later for the Persian Gulf War, which took place in 1991 and is perhaps the A-10’s most famous real-life role. It’s worth playing as a retro look back at early combat flight sims, and your best chance is finding a semi-legal copy on an abandonware site.
A-10 Attack!
Macs have long lacked for games, and 1995 was a dark time for Apple fans generally. Steve Jobs had been away from the company for a decade. Apple was struggling and Microsoft was nearing its release of Windows 95.
Fortunately, there was the Mac-exclusive A-10 Attack! by Parsoft Interactive.
In terms of realism and complexity, few flight sims of the day could beat Parsoft’s entry in the genre, which also takes place during a European war with the Soviet Union. More to the point, Parsoft stood athwart some of the gaming trends at the time, and produced an excellent sim because of it.
Here’s why. Until the mid-1990s, most flight simulators used low-resolution polygons for graphics, which freed up processing power for their engines. But as improvements in technology accelerated, including computer-melting 3D accelerated graphics, developers faced a dilemma. More processing power for better graphics meant gameplay sometimes suffered.
Thankfully, Parsoft kept the low-res polygons and gave us an amazingly ahead-of-its-time physics engine and enemy A.I. The result is a flight sim legend with realistic flight dynamics that retains its retro cool. To get a sense of what all this looks like on the screen, see this overview (embedded above) from the YouTube channel SiliconClassics.
And if you have a Mac, there is still a small community that has kept A-10 Attack! alive — though I can’t give you any tips on how to run it on a modern machine.
Luckily, for those of us with PCs, there was a sequel.
A-10 Cuba!
So A-10 Cuba! is basically A-10 Attack! except for Mac and Windows, plus improved graphics and with its setting in Cuba instead of Europe. The downside is that there are fewer missions and poor documentation — which for 1990s flight sims is almost unforgivable.
Personally, thick paper manuals are part of the era’s charm … and a necessity given the lack of detailed embedded tutorials.
But, then, we can’t be too choosy. If you’re on a PC and want to experience Parsoft’s physics while blowing up polygon tanks, then this game is for you. Tracking down a copy of A-10 Cuba! can be tricky, however. Your best bet is second-hand sellers on eBay and Amazon.
Caution: You may encounter compatibility issues.
Silent Thunder: A-10 Tank Killer II
There is a divide among wargamers, with one faction veering toward realism and the other favoring a more “arcadey” style. It’s an open question as to which side history has favored more. But Silent Hunter: A-10 Tank Killer II falls squarely on the latter side.
A 1996 sequel to the original A-10 Tank Killer and developed by Dynamix, this game takes a stripped-down flight model for novice sim pilots and combines it with 3D accelerated graphics. Moving further away from the Cold War, Silent Thunder features a three-part campaign set in Colombia, the Persian Gulf and South Korea.
I wish I had more to say on this one. The flight model is … not good. And the graphics have aged poorly. While 3D acceleration looked new and delightful at the time, it doesn’t have the nostalgia factor of A-10 Attack! and its polygons, which also had far better gameplay.
Windows only.
A.S.P. Air Strike Patrol
Here’s a general rule for arcadey military games. If you’re not aiming for realism, don’t bother with trying to make it look realistic. You’re not fooling anyone. This 1994 title by Japanese developer Opus for the Super Nintendo knows exactly what it is — a game where the player zooms around in a tiny A-10 Warthog or F-15 Strike Eagle while blowing up as many baddies as possible.
Think of it like Electronic Arts’ Strike series, complete with a fictional not-Persian Gulf conflict between the nations of Zarak and Sweit.
Lock On: Modern Air Combat
There was a time when flight simulators were the best-selling PC games out there. But by the late 1990s, competition from innovative first-person shooters and strategy games — among others — collapsed the market.
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By 2004, gamers could play Call of Duty or World of Warcraft instead of buying expensive peripherals for a sim that takes hours of studying to get off the ground. Flight sims never fully recovered.
Russian developer Eagle Dynamics’ 2003 game Lock On: Modern Air Combat (a.k.a. LOMAC) is an outlier — it was a full-bore attempt at a realistic dogfight sim with impressive 3D graphics and about a million different aspects of your (one of eight) aircraft to manage. It’s not a stretch to suggest that LOMAC helped save the genre for its dedicated, core fans.
To describe the game’s features would take a small book. Run out of fuel? You die. Don’t know the difference between pitch and yaw? Dead again. What do those blinking lights mean? Might be something bad. It could be a warning that an enemy MiG is about to shoot you down.
Your engines can catch on fire, which means you probably should’ve memorized that command for the built-in fire extinguisher. To stand any chance of using the A-10 effectively means mastering the AGM-65 air-to-surface missile’s multi-functional display.
LOMAC even foreshadowed the Russian invasion of Crimea more than a decade before it happened. Except the events depicted in the game’s single-player campaign are far more destructive — with Warthogs blasting away at Russian tank columns. Today, real-life A-10s fly over Eastern Europe as a show of force.
Windows only.
Digital Combat Simulator World
It’s all been leading up to this. Eagle Dynamics’ Digital Combat Simulator World, or DCS World, might not even be a game in the strictest sense of the term — more of a military training tool that models just about every button, switch and flight dynamic of nearly three-dozen military aircraft both modern and historic.
DCS is frankly hard to describe. Call it the ultimate aerial combat sim. The successor to Lock On, the learning curve is one of the steepest of any simulator … ever. Acquiring a basic understanding of most aircraft can take dozens of hours. Then you might not get shot down. But you probably will.
Your introduction to the A-10 Warthog is a photorealistic 3D cockpit with every button and screen configured for interaction. Not only is your navigation system modeled — complete with rotary switches and alphanumeric keypad — but so are its backups. That’s just the navigation system.
Here, for example, is your Digital Stores Management System, which handles the A-10’s weapon release profiles.
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Thankfully, Eagle Dynamics has a slimmed-down “game” version that is less intimidating for the casual player. And it’s free to play, but the freebie only comes with an Su-25 attack plane and a TF-51D Mustang fighter.
Most of the content — including the A-10 — are sold in individual add-on packages that are equivalent in price to a full game you’d find on Steam. But the $40 A-10 package is well worth it considering the sheer amount of development work gone into every single aircraft.
What’s really great about DCS is that it should stay with us for another decade, and most likely longer than that, thanks to the modding community which Eagle Dynamics encourages. It’s unlikely flight sims will ever recapture their former ’90s glory, but they’ve survived with a niche audience of uber-fans.
And that’s a good thing. You could seriously learn to fly an actual Warthog with this. (G-forces not included.)
Windows only.
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A realistic simulation of air combat, A-10 Cuba! was a huge success with the Macintosh crowd before Activision ported the title to the PC. Players must defend Guantánamo Bay from attacking forces through 16 air-to-air and air-to-ground combat missions. The game features in-depth terrain detail and boasts over 15,000 miles modeled to scale by the 3D engine.
One of the game's most endearing features is the large number of different enemy air and land units that players must face off against and the challenge increases with each level you play. This game is geared for the hard-core simulation crowd so most players will have to fly it solo. However, if friends are handy, multiplayer options are offered via modem and LAN connections.
Strap yourself in for a ride that will knock your socks (and your wings) right off! Activision's latest air combat simulator, A-10 CUBA! offers the latest in flight realism.
You are the pilot of Fairchild's A-10 Warthog, one of the US' arsenals most potent and ungainly ground attack aircraft. As tough and resilient as it is ugly, the A-10 will get you into and out of the toughest situation a hostile force can dish out. The amount of punishment the Warthog can dish out and receive is truly incredible and Activision has done an excellent job demonstrating this.
Situated in Guantanamo Bay, you are offered twelve missions to fly consisting of air to air, air to ground, and various combinations of the two. Your mission area is Cuba, who in this simulation, are none too friendly. Be prepared to be assaulted with Surface to Air Missiles, Anti Aircraft Artillery, Flak, and skilled enemy pilots. At the start, you will be given four training missions to choose from and these consist of takeoff, landing, air to air, and air to ground. The training missions are a good idea as you will want to become familiar with the extremely busy cockpit.
Activision has really tried to go to the limit in realism and you will find yourself immersed in the world of jet combat in short order. It must be pointed out that the designers of this game opted to go with realism in motion, combat, and pilot stress rather than photo realistic graphics. Upon first load-up of this simulation, you may find the graphics of the scenery a bit polygonal like other combat simulators on the market, but I have yet to fly any simulator that comes close to A-10s realism in motion, smoothness, and frame rate. The homework has been done on the physics model that they used. It is worthwhile to really put this plane through some serious experimentation in flight characteristics before embarking on a serious mission. The Warthog will realistically fly like a pig if you load it up to the limits and will fly relatively nimbly when light. Don't kid yourself though; the A-10 is not a dogfighter as any Warthog pilot will tell you. It is a flying tank.
What's it like to fly the A-10? Start the engine with the APU, power up the Heads Up Display, choose between navigation or target display, set flaps for takeoff and taxi to the runway. All of these controls can be switched on and off with the mouse or keyboard. Memorizing the controls on the keyboard is recommended as the mouse behaves sluggishly when everything is happening, and you'll be far too busy to be staring at a control panel. Arrow keys will change your cockpit views in a 360 degree direction as well as up and down. This is one of the areas where the realism hits you. The perspective is very accurate and the views are helpful especially in formation flying. You will almost always be flying with a wingman or two who will guide you on the flight path for the mission. It's up to you whether to follow them or not, although I do advise this at first.
The art work on the A-10 is well done and includes many details like moving ailerons, elevator, flaps, and rudders. The jets glow based on power output and also flame when things are not going so well. What really gets your heart going is the fact that the Warthog will fly when damaged. Its 'Iron Bathtub' protects you quite well and features of the real plane like engines that will eject pieces of your damaged craft and debris while still operating have been incorporated. The plane is not indestructible, and flying it becomes more and more difficult as further havoc is wreaked on your A-10. External views of your plane are available and show the damage you have sustained. Don't be surprised to see pieces of your wings or rudder missing! The A-10 gets more and more skittery as your speed decreases when damaged so watch out. Again, the motion has been handled superbly for control surfaces and will put other simulators to shame. Gliding is also possible and the plane can be trimmed to a descent rate of about one thousand feet per minute at one hundred and fifty knots.
What's the combat like? Grueling! It will seem at first as if they are sending you on suicide missions until you get the hang of it. I've flown many combat games and simulators and I felt like a complete novice. The help screen will give great hints as well as recommends armaments for each mission if you get tired of improvising. The A-10 Warthog is not a dogfighter and any mix-ups you have at close range with a Mig or Sukhoi will leave you clawing for the ejection handle. Fight and run with long range AIM-9s is your only hope. Air to ground combat has been well covered with varieties of heavy bombs, rockets, laser and optical guided missiles, and a cannon that will cut buildings and planes open like a can opener. There is so much to follow that you may want to have someone act as your Weapons System Officer to take care of some of the threats and targets.
While flying the mission, you are subject to S.A. Ms, flak, and hostile planes and missiles. If you get hit, you may have to extinguish fires and watch your HUD fizzle in and out of operation. You start to gain much respect for the pilots that fly the real version. If you are hit and manage to limp home or to a friendly base during the mission, you can reload weapons and fuel, and climb back into the action. Damage is damage however, and if your landing gear has been shot off, you are not going back up. You will be expected to fly at low levels (fifty feet) through canyons and gullies to get to some targets. This is one place where a little more graphics detail might have helped as depth perception can get a little skewed, especially at night. Did I mention the red eye mission? This one will have you turning off all lights in your computer room and wishing for an Forward Looking InfraRed guidance system. Unfortunately, you only have your eyes to go on and this mission will challenge you for a long time. For defense, you have the option of loading an electronics jamming pod on your hard point as well as chaff and flares to confuse incoming missiles.
While there is a mission map, a little more navigation help would have been nice, though your area of operation is small enough for you to eventually get your bearings. The runway and taxiway markings are accurate and show that extra little details were followed through for realism. Weapon aiming is a little difficult to figure out at first, i.e. pickling targets, and a few more training sessions might be required before you get the hang of it.
Sounds for A-10 CUBA! are well done and include explosions, guns, missile launches and everything else related to combat including the sound of you the pilot getting hit. Do not eject in a hangar or near any cliffs or you will hear a most horrific human scream that will make your spine shiver! The whole game is loaded onto your hard drive so don't expect a stunning musical score. This is not what A-10 is about and you really don't need to hear music when your plane is erupting in flames, flak, and shrapnel. The sounds cover a wide range and would sound great through a sub-woofer. Jet sounds are realistic as is wind noise from the airframe especially while gliding. They appear to have thought of everything.
Conclusion:
Activision has done a great job bringing the world of air to ground combat to your P.C. Realism in motion and multiple threats is the best I've seen to date. There are two other simulator games A-10 Gulf! and Dogfight that will be coming soon using the same smooth motion and I look forward to see what they've dreamed up. There is Network play available for up to eight players as well as two player modem link which I have not tried at the time of this article. The arena of combat for multiple players looks interesting and will add a dimension to the game. For air combat simulator lovers, A-10 Cuba! is motion and action at its best.
People who downloaded A-10 Cuba! have also downloaded:
A-10 Tank Killer v1.5, AH-64 Apache Air Assault, Apache Longbow, A-10 Tank Killer, AHx-1, Jane's AH-64D Longbow Gold, 1942: The Pacific Air War, ATF: Advanced Tactical Fighters
A-10 Tank Killer v1.5, AH-64 Apache Air Assault, Apache Longbow, A-10 Tank Killer, AHx-1, Jane's AH-64D Longbow Gold, 1942: The Pacific Air War, ATF: Advanced Tactical Fighters